Well, you can see from the title on the screen, we're back in Isaiah. And this is not a Christmas message, but it is a message that would cover every single event in our life. So let me invite you to take your Bible and turn to Isaiah chapter 6. Isaiah chapter 6. The last time I spoke, we looked at the first four verses. And today we're going to look at verses 5 through 7. And just so that we have a context of what Isaiah said in verses 5 through 7, I want to begin reading back at verse 1. It says, In the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above him, each having six wings. With two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. And the foundations of the threshold trembled at the voice of him who called out while the temple was filling with smoke. And then I said, woe is me, for I am ruined, because I'm a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said, behold, this has touched your lips and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven. And then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? And then I said, here am I, send me. He said, go and tell this people, keep on listening, but do not perceive. Keep on looking, but do not understand. Render the hearts of this people insensitive, their ears dull and their eyes dim. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart and return and be healed. And then I said, Lord, how long? And he answered, until cities are devastated and without inhabitant, houses are without people, and the land is utterly desolate. The Lord has removed men far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land, yet there will be a tenth portion in it, and it will again be subject to burning like a terebinth or an oak whose stump remains when it is felled. The holy seed is its stump. There are people today who claim that they have seen God. The only problem with this is they are living to tell about it. And why do I say that? Well, in the Bible, those who saw God said that they were going to die or they fell down like dead men. And this was true like of Manoah and his wife In Judges 13, after the angel of the Lord appeared to them, and after they offered a burnt offering to the Lord, Judges 13, 20 and following says that it came about that when the flame went up from the altar toward heaven, that the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar. And when Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell on their faces to the ground. Now the angel of the Lord did not appear to Manoah or his wife again. Then Manoah knew that he was the angel of the Lord. So Manoah said to his wife, "'We will surely die, for we have seen God.'" Apostle John had the same response. After seeing the resurrected Christ in Revelation chapter 1, In verse 17, he says, when I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. We don't see reactions like this when people say that they have seen the Lord. In fact, we hear some of the most silly, bizarre, blasphemous statements that come from that. And I don't know if that's because they want to be popular, But you do have to ask a question, at least in these two scenes, or we should say three, is why did they react like this? Well, 1 Timothy 6, 16 tells us that no man has seen or can see the Lord and live. You can't see the Lord and live. You say, well, what is happening here? Because Isaiah says he saw the Lord. Well, if you were to go back to chapter 1 and verse 1, it tells us that this was a vision. Even in 2 Chronicles 32, 32 refers to this being a vision when it says, Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah and his deeds of devotion, behold, they are written in the vision of Isaiah the prophet. I believe that they're in this vision, or the reason why God spoke by visions and dreams is because there had to be some kind of veiling in order for them to see the Lord, because the Bible teaches that He dwells in unapproachable light. 1 Timothy 6, 15 and 16 says, and only sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen. The Bible teaches that God spoke to the prophets by visions and by dreams. Numbers 12 and verse 6 says, if there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, shall make myself known to him in a vision. I shall speak with him in a dream. You say, well, what is a vision? Well, some have defined a vision as the sight of things normally hidden from human eyes. I would agree with that. I mean, even if you go to the book of Job, that's not mentioned as a vision, but we do see the veil pulled back and we see the throne of God. And we hear this conversation going on between God and Satan. Doesn't say that that's a vision, but obviously the curtains pulled back so that Job was able to see this and write about this. God pulled it back for him. Same is true here in Isaiah chapter six. We find over in Acts chapter 10 and verse 10, Luke describes Peter's vision as a trance in which one lexicon describes it as a displacement of the mind from his ordinary state of self-possession. That's just a fancy way of saying that his normal operation is the opposite of what he's experiencing now. Normally, you cannot see this. The word that he uses here for trance, it's later in verse 19, now changed to the Greek word harama. Harama is the word for vision. And that means literally that which is seen. So that doesn't really help us, does it? I chased this around for a good while, looking at so many passages and just asking that question, what is a vision? And the closest that I could come to is this definition, that which is seen. It is an appearance. It was the way in which God communicated. In fact, visions were so frequent that it became unusual for it to be infrequent. We know it's used over in Matthew 17, 9 to speak of Jesus' transfiguration before Peter, James, and John. And even though it says in verse 9 that this was a vision, we see them having the same response as Manoah and Isaiah and John. It says, After hearing a voice out of the cloud, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. Listen to him. Verse six says, when the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the ground and were terrified. I don't think that we see God as great as he really is. We play fast and loose with a holy God. And yet the Bible tells us here in Isaiah, Isaiah's response, as he is witnessing this glorious vision of God. And as I said, God used visions to communicate to his people. He did it in both the Old and the New Testament. We said last time, as we were looking at this section, that when it says that he saw the Lord sitting on the throne, he saw Yahweh, that's the word for Lord, that this was actually a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ. We would call this a Christophany. John 12, 41 says, these things Isaiah said because he saw His glory and spoke of Him in the context is that it is Jesus. And so what is the message that is being communicated here? Because we can get all caught up in the scene and miss the message. What's the message? The message is verse 3. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory. That's the message, and that is also the theme of the Bible. When you want to learn about God, you start right there. Some people try to define God by His attributes, and they'll start with love, but they don't talk about holiness, and therefore they have a very hard time understanding what's going on in the world, what's going on in past history with Israel, Especially when they were told to go into those nations that they were going to dispossess and totally wipe them out. Which meant women and children too. When you understand that God is a holy God, then you understand those situations. Everything about God is defined by His holiness. Moses discovered that in Exodus chapter 3, when he saw a blazing fire from the midst of a bush and the bush was not consumed. Could you imagine the sight of that? And so Moses, as he sees this, he says, I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up. And when the Lord saw that he had turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses, and he said, here I am. And then he said, do not come near. Remove your sandals from your feet for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. And why is it holy ground? Because God is there. He said also, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. And then Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look at God. So these people today, And people in history that go out on a limb and say, I saw the Lord, and I've had some bizarre situations shared with me personally, and I stand there probably with this shocked look on my face and probably a look of disgust, to be honest with you, because I'm thinking, you didn't see the Lord. Because if you saw the Lord, you would have had the same response that these had. We're told in Exodus 1511 that Moses and the children of Israel later sang this song. And this song said this. Here's the lyrics. Who is like you among the gods, O Lord? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in praises, working wonders? That's what they sang. And why not sing that? They had just experienced a great miracle. Where the water of the Red Sea had been parted and they walked on dry ground. Well over a million people. Could you imagine how long it took for them to cross? And the Egyptians are coming and God confuses them. You remember he led them during the day by the cloud and at night by a pillar of fire. And so he put that cloud there between the Egyptians and the Israelites, and that held them back. And then when he finally allowed them to go in, they were in so chaos and confusion, when they came in, also pursuing after Israel in the dry ground, all of a sudden they decided to retreat and turn around. as those waves came crashing down on them. God told Moses in Leviticus 19 to speak to all the congregation of the sons of Israel and say to them, you shall be holy for I the Lord your God am holy. He is the standard, just like Matthew 5.48, you shall be perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect. He sets the standard, not you and I. We tend to lower it. The psalmist also declared God's holiness. Psalm 71, 22, he says, and again, these are psalms, they're singing. I will also praise you with a harp, even your truth, O my God. To you I will sing praises with the lyre, O holy one of Israel. Psalm 77, 13, your way, O God, is holy. Who is great like our God? What's the answer? No one is great like our God. Psalm 93 and verse 5 says, Your testimonies are fully confirmed. Holiness befits your house, O Lord, forevermore. Psalm 99, beginning at verse 1, it says, The Lord reigns. Let the peoples tremble. He is enthroned above the cherubim. Let the earth shake. The Lord is great in Zion. He is exalted above all the peoples. Let them praise your great and awesome name. Holy is he. The strength of the king loves justice. You have established equity. You have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob. Exalt the Lord our God and worship at his footstool. Holy is he. Did you know that we find the mention of God being holy in 27 Old Testament books? I know, I looked. It's found in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, 1 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Zephaniah, Haggai, and Zechariah. And then I asked, well, how many books do we find it in the New Testament? Because that was just the Old Testament. Well, it's mentioned in 19 books in the New Testament. It's mentioned in the four gospels, Acts, Romans, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, Ephesians, Colossians, 1st Thessalonians, 1st and 2nd Timothy, Titus, Hebrews, 1st and 2nd Peter, 1st John, Jude, and Revelation. So 46 books. in the Bible. When you say that that's the theme, last week when we began our look at Isaiah chapter 6, we focused on the vision that you find in the first four verses. We saw, it says, in the year of King Uzziah's death, that was around 740 BC, we're told in 2 Chronicles 26.16 that the cause of his death was leprosy and that was caused by his pride. He went into the temple and he began to offer, or to burn incense on the altar of incense. At that very moment, he was opposed by Azariah the priest as well as 80 other priests. And while he is enraged at them, all of a sudden, leprosy broke out on his forehead. And the priest saw it and they hurried him out of the temple. He lived the rest of his life in his own house as a leper. Verse 21 gave us his epitaph. It said, King Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death, and he lived in a separate house being a leper, for he was cut off from the house of the Lord. So you can just imagine in the midst of this tragedy, in the midst of this earthly monarch dying, And with Him dying, all the security and the benefits of His long and prosperous reign are now gone. And so Isaiah, in the midst of that tragedy, comes into the temple, and what does he see? He sees God on His throne. The earthly monarch is no longer on His earthly throne, but God is on His throne. And by the way, God is always on His throne. So again, verses 1 to 4 gives us the vision. And let me just summarize what he saw. He saw the Lord sitting on a throne. The throne was high and lifted up, which means it was greatly elevated. We understand that the imagery taken here is the practice of earthly kings. We saw Solomon's throne in 1 Kings 10, which had a grandeur greater than any earthly throne. He tells us that he saw the train of his robe, and the train of his robe filled the temple, and that train was that fringe of his robe. We've actually described it as like a wedding garment that has that robe or that fringe that comes all the way down, and he said this just literally filled the temple. And not was that the only sight, but it says that seraphim were above him. Seraphim are only mentioned here and in verse 6. These are angels that are created by God. These burning ones, that's what their name means, could suggest their fiery presence. Then he tells us that he saw them with six wings. Two, he covered his face as a sign of reverence. Two, he covered his feet as a sign of humility. and two wings were used for flying as a sign of willing service. And then he heard this antiphonal praise coming from them, as one called out to another, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory. And by the way, the term Lord, no one really knows how to pronounce it. In earlier days, there were no vowels in it. They were added there to help you pronounce it, but it's just Y-H-W-H. That is what theologians call the Tetragrammaton, those four letters. But as I pointed out to you is that it says that he saw the Lord And the term Lord in verse 1 is Adonai, but then when you get down to verse 3, the term Lord is YHWH, if it's pronounced Yahweh. Some have even expressed how they got the word Jehovah, which they came out of this word, but Jehovah's not even a word. It's like other words that we find. The word deacon is not even a word. It is a transliteration of a Greek word, diakonos. But we notice here in verse 3, it says that He is holy, holy, holy, and it's mentioned three times for emphasis. It also is mentioned three times to tell us that God is thrice holy. And to say the word in Hebrew twice or three times is to describe Him as being most holy. And to do it that many times is to intensify the idea of the highest level. In other words, the holiness of God is indescribable in human language. I agree with that. To be holy means to be different. It means to be distant. It means to be transcendent. The Song of the Seraphim is a constant refrain that the transcendence of God is indescribable. And so last time, as we looked at the word holy, we said it speaks of transcendence. Transcendence literally means to climb across. It means to exceed usual limits. When we talk about transcending, that means to rise above something. It means to go above and beyond a certain limit. When we speak of the transcendence of God, we're talking about that sense in which God is above and beyond us. It tries to get at His supreme and absolute greatness. In the book of Isaiah, He is called the Holy One at least 30 times. And by being called the Holy One, that is emphasizing His separateness. His otherness, His transcendence. Here's what Hosea 11 and verse 9 says, and this will give you a very simple understanding of transcendence. God says, I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst. So when you think about God or you try to compare anything to God, He is not man. He's not anything that you could come up with. He is the Holy One in your midst. Here's two other verses that kind of help with this transcendence. Psalm 113 verse 4. The Lord is high above all the nations. His glory is above the heavens. And Psalm 99 in verse two, the Lord is great in Zion and He is exalted above all the peoples. God is exalted above the people, not with the people or a part of the people. He is not a man. Now, when Isaiah comes into the temple, and he sees this amazing vision, and sees God on His throne, and he hears the seraphim crying out in this intifinal praise, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy. He just sees and hears this, and he immediately thinks about the fact that he sees himself. God is a holy God. And God, guess what, sees how unholy Isaiah is. He hears these pure words coming from the seraphim about God being holy and he realizes that he can't even utter that because he is unholy. So verse 5, we hear his confession. And we also answer a question, what do you say when you see God. In some cases, nothing. In other cases, like this one, he said, Woe is me, for I am ruined. because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." So not only could Isaiah not utter those intifinal praise-filled words of holy, holy, holy, no one could, because their lips are unclean. So he says, woe is me. Just as the foundations of the threshold in verse 4 were trembling at the voice of the seraphim as they called out, and as the temples filling up with smoke, Isaiah is coming apart. Isaiah is coming to pieces. This woe article is an announcement of judgment. It literally means, curse me, judge me, damn me, and consign me to the pit. It's a word of judgment. It's a very strong word. In fact, this word alone is used 19 times in Isaiah. Six of those times are found in chapters 3 through 5. And so as these woes are being pronounced, and then he comes into the temple and sees God, all he could do is pronounce the woe to himself. That term woe often occurs with a preposition like, woe to me or woe to us. and it follows to indicate a despair. He was so affected by this vision that he expected immediate destruction. That's why he says, I'm ruined. Some lexicons have rendered this phrase, woe to me for I have been reduced to silence. John Calvin says in the scripture, silence is often taken for death, And those who have been buried are said to have been reduced to silence. Well, he gives the reason for this despair in verse 5. He says that, I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. R.C. Sproul says his conviction is specific. He has unclean lips. And the fact that others around him suffer from the same condition compounds his sin rather than alleviate it. In other words, he's not qualified to praise the king. His lips, which are the instrument of praise, are unclean because they're contaminated by sin. And if the lips are unclean, guess what? So is the heart, because it's out of the heart that the mouth speaks. Job and Peter came to that same realization about themselves when they were confronted with the presence of the Lord. Job said in Job 42.6, Peter said in Luke 5.8, after the Lord Jesus told him to toss the net to the other side of the boat. And when he did, and they started pulling all the fish, he told the Lord, go away from me, for I am a sinful man. One commentator says, there's something exceedingly affecting in this complaint. I'm a man of unclean lips. I cannot say, holy, holy, holy, which the seraphim exclaim. They are holy and I am not. They see God and live. I have seen Him and must die because I'm unholy. Only the pure in heart shall see God and they only can live in His presence forever. Reader, lay this to your heart. Instead of boasting of thy excellence and trusting in thy might, or comforting thyself in thy comparative innocence, thou will also be dumb before him, because thou hast been a man of unclean lips, and because thou hast still an unclean heart. J. Vernon McGee says, the reaction of Isaiah to such a vision is revolutionary. He sees himself as he really is in the presence of God, undone. It reveals to him his condition. When he had seen God, he could see himself. The problem with many of us today is that we don't walk in the light of the Word of God. If we did, we would see ourselves. And as I said earlier, Many that are claiming to have seen the Lord are not having the same reaction of those in the Bible who saw the Lord. So therefore, I conclude, they didn't see the Lord. And if they did, why are they living? Why hasn't it totally devastated their life? We couldn't handle any more than a vision or a dream. And those alone would be terrifying enough. Do you remember when Abraham, earlier in Genesis, the Lord appeared to him in a dream? And as he's describing what he saw in this dream, he was terrified. We don't have the same view of Scripture. But keep in mind that the point of conviction is to reveal a very present need. And what is that need? Cleansing. Aren't you thankful that the Lord Jesus Christ has provided that cleansing? That you and I can stand before him, totally cleansed from our sin. We're told in 1 John, that we, in verse three, have seen and heard and proclaimed to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. And in that fellowship, we're seeing, like verse seven, that if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with Him, or with one another, and the blood of Jesus his son does what? Cleanses us from all sin. Aren't you thankful for that? We have been cleansed from all sin, and by the way, we are constantly being cleansed from our sin. The Bible tells us in Hebrews that Jesus makes intercession for us. So in verses 6 and 7, we see the response of the seraphim after Isaiah pronounces this uncleanness on himself. Look at verse 6. Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongues. And he touched my mouth with it and said, behold, this has touched your lips and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven. So Isaiah says, this seraphim, one of the seraphim, flew to him with a burning coal in his hand. He took it from the altar with the tongs Many are unsure where this is in relation to the temple. The altar is not described. The stress is on the purification necessary for approaching God. Some say that this is the altar where burnt offerings were made, which would have been in the court of the priest in front of the temple. Others say that this is taken from the altar of incense. This is obviously taken from the heavenly temple, not the earthly one. And if this is the altar for the burnt offering, this burnt offering or this fire was to burn continuously. Leviticus 6.12 tells us the fire on the altar shall be kept burning on it, it shall not go out. This was constantly burning. But the priest, it says, shall burn wood on it every morning, and he shall lay out the burnt offering on it and offer up in smoke the fat portions of the peace offering on it. Fire shall be kept burning continually on the altar. It is not to go out. So he takes this burning coal. Some have described it not as coal, but as a burning stone. But he takes that, verse 7, and he touches his mouth with it. You know one of the most sensitive parts on your body is your lips? Yeah, you know that when they get chapped, don't you? And you have to put something on it to help you with it. But here, why is he talking about touching his mouth? Well, he had just declared his mouth was dirty. It was unclean. So he brought it in contact with that part of him which the prophet had recognized as the seat of his impurity. It's very interesting that Mesopotamian rituals often featured the purification of lips as symbolic of the purification of the person. He says, after the hot coal touched his lips, the seraphim said, Behold, this has touched your lips and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven. And because now his mouth has been cleansed, his life has been made pure, he now has a right to speak. He can join in with the seraphim as they are singing, holy, holy, holy. You and I are able to offer up worship to God because we have been cleansed and we can sing the same song. He's no longer unclean. He's been forgiven. The word forgiven here, it means to make atonement. Make amends means to pardon, to release, to appease. Many translations have struggled with this term. The same verb occurs in Akkadian ritual literature, referring to wiping away ritual impurity. And it was used specifically in the purification of the mouth. In one old Babylonian prayer, the diviner wipes his mouth with resin in preparation for appearing before the assembly of the gods. And in one Babylonian incantation, fire was commonly seen as a purifying element. There's actually one incantation titled the Sherpu, the burning, and it's concerned with removing ritual offense or uncleanness. But we must understand here that this cleansing was not for salvation, this was for spiritual service. We can't serve God if we're entertaining sin. No one can. Charles Spurgeon said, you and your sins must separate or you and your God will never come together. Isn't there truth to that? Now Isaiah has been cleansed and he can now say, as Hebrews 4.16 says, with confidence, he can come to the throne of grace so that he can receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need, just as you and I do. Isaiah is now a man who is above reproach. He is now a man who has been tested by God coming through the refiner's fire. You know, today we examine men for ministry on that basis. 1 Timothy 3, Titus chapter 1. Those are two books that mention the qualifications of those who serve in pastoral or a serving ministry like deacons. And if you're one who is in that ministry, you are one who is constantly reminded of those qualifications. And those qualifications are not met just one time while being examined. Those qualifications are ongoing. And at any time in your life, you can violate them. And some of them here, if you violate them, you're gone. You're no longer a pastor. You're no longer a deacon. You can be those things for life if you maintain those qualifications. Boy, how we need to say that today. Because there are a lot of men in ministry that are not qualified to be in ministry. So if the man of God is meeting these qualifications for ministry, then he's a cleansed man. He's purged. He's ready for service. He, like Isaiah in verse 8, can say, here I am, send me. But the question that we need to ask this morning is, does this describe your response to God? I will just tell you for myself, there are some days that the information is too overwhelming. We don't have visions and dreams today. That's coming in the future when it returns back to that. Right now, we don't have that. What we have is the Word of God, and I will just tell you that when you study the Word of God, and I'm talking about going beyond your reading, you dig deep and you begin to understand what the Word of God is saying. What the author meant when he wrote it, there are some days it's too much information. It's like the psalmist in Psalm 139 when he is He's contemplating the omniscience of God, the knowledge of God. God knows everything about me. He knows when I rise up. He knows when I lie down. And he says, this is too wonderful for me. I cannot contain it. And what he is admitting is you're taking the infinite mind of God and you're reducing it to finite understanding and you can't do that. We're finite. God is infinite. There is no possible way for us to fully grasp everything about Him. And the only thing that we can grasp is what He has revealed in His Word. We're going to spend eternity in awe and wonder and amazement. Probably first amazed that we're there. You know what I mean? And then we realize why we're there, because of Christ. He's the only reason why we're here. He's the only reason why you're here in this church this morning. Well, before you answer yes that this describes you, listen to this quote from Alistair Begg. He says, God is holy, holy, holy. Therefore, He doesn't like the movies we watch. Therefore, He is disgusted by some of our literature. Therefore, His spirit is driven within Him as He sees some of the things we, as professing Christians, have decided are fine for us as we make our way towards heaven. We don't have the response that Isaiah gives us. So now I ask you, what's your answer? My answer is, woe is me. That's all I can say. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 7, 1, Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Every single waking moment of the day, we should be involved in the process of ridding ourselves from sin. Why? Because God is holy. And since He is holy, you are to be holy. 1 Peter 1.15, But like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior. Get a glimpse of God this morning. See Him as the seraphim. Worship Him. He's holy, holy, holy. The whole earth is full of His glory. And if you can't see Him that way, well, maybe it's because you're entertaining sin and that has blinded your sight. And like Isaiah, you need to confess your sin and turn in humble repentance to Him. This is one of the reasons why I'm so thankful that God has given us a book, not a music video, not anything else, but a book. Because it's frozen print on a page that you can go back and read it over and over and over. You don't have to worry about forgetting it. It's right in front of you. Now there may be challenges to that in the future as the persecution mounts up against believers and Bibles are taken away, it becomes illegal to have a Bible, and then you're pressed to what you've memorized from the Bible. There's one gentleman, I forget where he's at, but he's memorized the entire New Testament. Praise the Lord. So, beloved, as you come to this passage and as you contemplate what Isaiah is saying here, is this what you see? Do you see Jesus? That's Him in verse 1. Have you surrendered your life to Him? That's Isaiah, verses 5 to the end of the chapter. See, beloved, our cleansing is based upon the work of Christ. And when you surrender to him in faith, that work is applied to you. And you're cleansed. If you've never called upon Him, you've never believed in Him, you've never surrendered your life to Him, you've never received Him, you've never confessed Him as Lord, you've never believed in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you need to do so and you need to do it now. Today. Peter said today is the day of salvation. Right now. Don't wait thinking I got another day, week, or month. I've got time. Time is not on your side if you're lost. And if anything, thank Him for the time He's given you because you are under the condemnation of God according to John 3, 18. And at that very moment when God says, time's up, What you are in this life is what you'll be in the next, so if you're not saved, you will go into eternity without Christ lost. You'll go to hell. So beloved, you sit here week after week, you hear these same words, and you hear me even say, examine yourself in light of the scripture, fall upon this awesome God and cry out for His forgiveness. Father, we thank You for this morning. We thank You for Your Word. Without Christ, we are nothing. Without Christ, We have a horrible future. An eternity without you. An eternity under your judgment. An eternity under your wrath. Save that person this morning, Lord, that's in here. Save them, I pray. And I pray for those who are saved, Lord, that we would have the same response Isaiah had about his life. He wasn't happy with what he saw. And all he could do was pronounce judgment on himself. All he could expect was your judgment. Lord God, we don't deserve any good that you've done to us. any good that you've given to us, any good you've shown us. We don't deserve your mercy. We don't deserve your grace. We don't deserve salvation. We don't deserve heaven. We deserve hell. So, Lord, I pray this morning, please do that work in the heart of that person this morning. And bring them to yourself that they would know you. We pray all this.